In today's radio communications networks a number of different technologies are used, such as Long Term Evolution (LTE), LTE-Advanced, 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA), Global System for Mobile communications/Enhanced Data rate for GSM Evolution (GSM/EDGE), Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMax), or Ultra Mobile Broadband (UMB), just to mention a few possible implementations. A radio communications network comprises radio base stations providing radio coverage over at least one respective geographical area forming a cell. The cell definition may also incorporate frequency bands used for transmissions, which means that two different cells may cover the same geographical area but using different frequency bands. User equipments (UE) are served in the cells by the respective radio base station and are communicating with respective radio base station. The user equipments transmit data over an air or radio interface to the radio base stations in uplink (UL) transmissions and the radio base stations transmit data over an air or radio interface to the user equipments in downlink (DL) transmissions.
In today's development of Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) wireless technologies, mentioned above, there are methods to differentiate end-user packet data services using Quality of Services definitions. The Quality of Service definitions may define a service priority, delay requirements, bit rate requirements, etc.
When an end-user of a user equipment initiates a packet data session accessing the radio communications network a connection is setup between a core network and the user equipment commonly denoted as one bearer service. Several packet data sessions may be carried by the same bearer service. The bearer service uniquely identifies packet flows, also referred to herein as traffic flows, that receive a common Quality of Service treatment between the user equipment and a gateway to the core network. In e.g. WCDMA networks a top bearer service is denoted as a Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) Bearer defined by a Packet Data Protocol (PDP) context, while in a System Architecture Evolution (SAE)/LTE radio communications network a corresponding bearer service is denoted Evolved Packet System (EPS) Bearer.
Through a Radio Access Network (RAN) each bearer service is associated with one Radio Access Bearer (RAB), which is associated with one radio bearer. Herein we will use radio bearer as a general term for a bearer through the access network and comprises radio access bearer, a radio bearer, a Temporary Block Flow (TBF) or similar. For each radio access bearer or radio bearer the same Quality of Service is defined as for the bearer service. All traffic mapped to the same radio access bearer receive the same treatment for packet forwarding on a bearer level e.g. scheduling policy, queue management policy, rate shaping policy, Radio Link Control (RLC) configuration. A PDP Context/EPS bearer is mapped to one logical channel, a radio bearer, a radio access bearer or a temporary block flow for the different standards LTE, WCDMA and GSM.
The core network, e.g. a gateway node, may intercept traffic to perform packet inspection such as Deep Packet Inspection (DPI), flow identification, flow classification or likely, to detect different packet flows. The core network may then initiate the setup of additional radio bearers in order to separate different packet flows and to make it possible to differentiate the different packet flows on a service level by assigning different QoS to the different radio bearers based on the service of the different packet flows. But from a RAN perspective there is no guarantee that the process to differentiate the different packet flows on a radio bearer level actually is done in the core network. A drawback with the core network solution is that it requires multiple radio bearers to be set up, which introduces extra delay when setting up radio bearers in the radio communications network where the setup of radio bearers may be done in sequence. There are also limitations in the number of bearer combinations and number of parallel radio bearers supported by the user equipments and the radio communications network. This results in a reduced performance of the radio communications network.